Regional Elections Rift Widens as Parties Clash Over DPRD Plan

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id - Indonesia’s debate over changing regional head elections intensifies on Sunday, Jan 4, 2026 in Jakarta after the Labor Party rejects any return to council-based selection, warning it would weaken voter sovereignty and expand vote-buying risk while rival camps argue the current direct system is too costly and polarizing.

Labor Party President Said Iqbal said direct elections protect voter choice because citizens can scrutinize candidates through credible sources, including social media. “Direct elections reflect the sovereignty of the people. People can see the track record of regional head candidates before deciding,” he said.

Iqbal said a council vote would concentrate power in a small number of councilors, making transactional politics easier. “With only a handful of regional council members, suspected money games are very likely to happen,” he said.

Iqbal framed direct regional elections as a product of Indonesia’s Reform Era and argued reversing course would repeat past failures. “Why should we go backward to a system that has failed. We have not been living through Reform for long,” he said.

Costs, Legitimacy, and Corruption risk

Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian has said the constitution does not require direct regional elections, pointing to language that regional leaders must be chosen “democratically,” which he argued can include either direct voting or selection through representative bodies if the law is revised.

The chair of the House committee overseeing election issues has also argued that indirect selection through regional councils has a strong constitutional basis, citing the same “democratically” wording.

Supporters of a council-based model have linked the proposal to concerns about ballooning public spending and the spillover of campaign polarization into local governance.

The Gerindra Party, one of the largest parties in the governing coalition, has publicly backed electing governors, regents, and mayors through regional councils, calling it an option worth considering.

Other parties have floated hybrid alternatives rather than a full shift to council selection.

Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) senior figure Mulyanto said the party was studying the tradeoffs and suggested governors could be chosen by councils under strict transparency rules, while regents and mayors should remain directly elected for stronger public accountability.

“However this election must take place openly, transparently, with open voting and a firm ban on closed political transactions,” he said.

“We want effective local government, not power trapped in political transactions,” he added.

An opinion proposal by Paramadina University Rector Didik J. Rachbini offered a two-step “middle path” model that keeps an electoral filter while shifting the final choice to a council vote.

Under his proposal, the top three vote-getters for regional council seats in a district would automatically become the candidate pool for regional head, and the newly formed council would then select one of the three. “The regional head candidates still have genuine electoral legitimacy, not merely the product of elite lobbying,” he wrote in an opinion article on Investortrust.id.

“Direct democracy like this then creates candidates’ dependence on political financiers,” he wrote, arguing the hybrid model could reduce incentives to “pay back” campaign costs through corruption.

But he also warned the council stage could become the new arena for closed-door bargaining and demanded safeguards such as public broadcasting of the council vote and tougher criminal sanctions for bribery.

Accountability and Stability

Backlash from labor and civil society has focused on the risk that shifting the decision to councils would move accountability away from voters and toward party structures.

The Independent Committee for Election Awareness (KISP) said council-based selection would “injure democracy” by weakening transparency and enlarging room for elite transactions.

“It does not focus on competition over work programs, and it increases corruption risk,” the group’s coordinator Moch Edward Trias Pahlevi said.

The group argued that changing the mechanism would not automatically solve high costs and money politics, and urged reforms to party recruitment, election rules, and election management instead. “The solution is fixing the system, not reducing the people’s right to vote,” Trias said.

Business associations have largely framed the issue through the lens of governance stability. At a policy discussion hosted by a Jakarta think tank, Apindo official Sarman Simanjorang said the key concern for investors and employers is predictable politics regardless of the election format.

“For us as businesspeople, whatever scheme is prepared for these elections, what matters is political stability. That is the most important,” he said.

The dispute now centers on whether Indonesia can curb vote buying and campaign spending while preserving direct voter legitimacy, or whether a redesigned selection system with tighter controls can deliver cleaner outcomes.